02-08-03 @ 11:52 am EST

I received a very, very thoughtful e-mail yesterday after my last entry, and it made me smile, which is exactly what I needed. :) I don't feel quite so depressed anymore, and I'm grateful. So I felt I should post a journal entry because that's what was asked for. ^_^ I had a lot of things to say but I've forgotten most of them by now!! My head must be wandering lately.

Firstly I want to comment on the new journal limits at Writing.com. I knew the crackdown on journals was going to come, but in a way I'm relieved it took this form and not what I had expected it would. Basically, free members are no longer allowed journals. An extreme step, and one that admittedly I don't like...but necessary. After receiving the e-mail announcement about this, out of curiosity, I went to the journals section and sorted them by newest first. And one of the three most recently created ones was one of the very reasons they have done this. Too many free users are utilizing the journals to store static items to surpass their 15-item limit.

I will not say I'm not entirely innocent in this deal--I still have the journal version of the old "Ineina Chronicles" (what the Ameni Chronicles were called before I outed myself as their author), and have yet to decide whether to delete it entirely or not. My Apsiu worldbuilding profile used to be static items but now it's in journal format (although it's also completely redone, except for the "crime examples," and is a rough WIP). If the limits hadn't come along before then, I might have considered making my Ameni Chronicles character profiles (private at the moment) statics, but they are a journal instead. So you see I am not guiltless here. But I fully understand the reasoning behind the ban. At the very least these users did NOT have to announce that they were purposefully breaking the rules--which many of them did! (Why court trouble like that??)

And so the first step in the journal crackdown is to ban them for free users. Those who already have journals get to keep them so long as they don't abuse them. Although I sometimes post fiction and such in here, I like to think that I'm not breaking the rules as the vast majority of Skew is of a journal nature--personal entries--as journals are meant to be. Well, duh, I just remembered...plus I'm a paying member so I can pretty much post whatever I want in a journal, so long as I don't go posting EVERYTHING in them. Even premiums have their item limit (and mine is about half used up--not too shabby, considering Manitou Island is over one tenth of that limit, plus I have four novels of roughly twenty parts each, the sixty-odd parts of the Chronicles, all my short stories, and various other things stashed here!).

So as I was saying, it's a hard break, but tough. It never would have happened if so many free users hadn't blatantly abused the limits, and because of them, the majority of actual journal keepers will suffer. Those who could/would not pay, that is.

My only fear in speaking up to agree on this issue is what steps will come NEXT in the crackdown. At this point I suspect it will be limits on what may be posted in journals of paid members. Those of us who use them to post novels and poetry and such will probably have to delete those journals sometime in the future and use them only for personal entries, and possibly rough writing like exercises and freewriting and such (face it, it's a journaling fact that these things are widely used for exercising our talents, keeping track of our dreams, etc.). I'm not sure what will come after that; possibly a limit on how MANY journals one can have. I have...what is it?...five, I think, that I maintain; this and Skew 2, Dreams, the Ameni profiles, and the worldbuilder journal. There are two other journals that I keep meaning to copy and delete so that makes seven. That's all I can remember, at least. We will probably be limited to three or to one, eventually. That could just mean that members will combine journals, but who knows. I'm very anal with the order of my entries and would hate doing that.

Then would (will?) come the limits I'm REALLY afraid of: limits to the NUMBER of entries allowed, to the LENGTH of entries allowed, and to HOW OFTEN entries are allowed to be posted. All of these would adversely affect me personally; see how I reacted to LJ's restrictions? Take a look, Skew is the second-longest journal on the site, and probably the longest in terms of how much memory all the entries combined take up. My entries have been known to get very long (well, duh!). And as I said before, I can post up to six times a day or more, if things are going wrong. (I tend to post more often when I'm having a bad day. Or when I'm researching the Ojibwa. *shrug* You figure it out.) THESE are the limits I'm afraid will have to come in the future; and judging by how quickly things have changed since April 2002, I fear how soon these changes may come.

I keep meaning to post all the rest of my erotica here as quickly as I can so people can view it before the 1000-item limit is lowered, but keep forgetting. Well, it hasn't had much interest shown in it lately anyway. :/ I'm more devoted to the Chronicles, and very few people like M/M stories. There is this inexplicable "eww" factor surrounding M/M stories that doesn't seem to apply to F/F stories. (For the record, I find M/M stories ADORABLE! While F/F does absolutely nothing for me. That's why you find so little of it in the Chronicles, aside from the occasional scene with Khetai. I like Khetai! She's mannish! That just proves my point!)

What on Earth else was I going to write about?? o_O

I had a dream I had nice hair. NICE hair! I so wish that were true. It was even messy but it still looked nice. *sigh* And again Monk kept wandering through my dreams because he was on TV (damn you Monk!--stay out of my head!), but I can't remember what it was about...oh...I think sexual abuse featured in it. Again. :/ This puzzles me. Why all the dreams about child/sexual abuse lately? Just when I thought those were over with...

I KNOW I had something else...agh.

I bought every magazine last night that had anything about the Columbia on the cover...I was too young in 1986 to really understand the significance of what happened (though every time I see Challenger and now Columbia on the screen, it's like living through a horrible flashback, tears and trembling and all), hence I have no reminders of that time. I do have this little toy space shuttle, but I have no clue where I got it from. I learned that the Columbia and Challenger were part of the original fleet of five shuttles which also included Discovery, Endeavor, and Atlantis (which was the one set to pick up the people on the space station, who are now stranded there as Atlantis is grounded--I saw a pic of Atlantis--it looks like a piece of junk!). These FIVE shuttles have been around since around 1981! Columbia was the SAME shuttle used in the very first shuttle mission! (I had no idea the shuttle program began only five years before Challenger. I just assumed it had been around longer than that!) I must confess I was completely ignorant until now. I had no idea that there were only five shuttles to begin with, and that they had never EVER replaced any of them. Ever! These are the SAME five--now three--they have always used! I just assumed that...well, after Challenger blew up, they got a replacement shuttle. o_o I know that sounds very naive now, considering how much the things cost, but...well...they're so OLD! I really thought I remembered that Challenger was in fact called something like Challenger 2 or Challenger 6--I thought that meant it was the SECOND of TWO or SIXTH of SIX or more Challenger shuttles--I guess it just meant that was its mission number, how many times it had gone into space or something, if in fact I remembered that correctly after all. How stupid was I! I honestly, sincerely thought that these shuttles were regularly being replaced, not that we had only five to begin with, that we have been using these clunky five for twenty years, and that once one was gone, it was never replaced by a new one. Gah. I feel like an idiot for not knowing any of this.

But now that I know it, I'm also ANGRY to learn that Columbia was supposed to have been retired a YEAR ago. These craft are meant to be used for only twenty years. That's an incredibly long time for such sophisticated craft on such dangerous missions, in my eyes, but who knows, I don't work for NASA. The deal is, after Challenger, they pushed the retirement date on the shuttles ahead to 2015!! That's almost FIFTEEN YEARS past their planned retirement date! All this because of CUTBACKS!

Challenger exploded because of an O-ring. Columbia most likely fell to pieces because of the cutbacks from Challenger. Let's see how well the government does now with the cutbacks from Columbia--which shuttle will disintegrate next?--Discovery? Atlantis?

IF one ever gets up into the air again, that is...I also read that it was 32 months before another shuttle took off after 1986. That's almost three years. Unfortunately (or fortunately?), one will have to take off a LOT sooner than that to rescue the stranded crew of the space station, if the Russians don't rescue them first. Which could very well happen.

Holy gah but I blathered a lot about that, for knowing next to nothing about the situation. >_< Forgive me for my utter lack of knowledge on all this; I must admit that since 1986, I react to the shuttle program pretty much based on emotion alone.

And I KNOW I had at least ONE MORE THING to talk about! But I can't remember what it was! *sigh* OOOOHHHHHHH!!! The subject of this title! I am so stupid! Dar!

Yesterday morning I started work on

ID: 625971 (Rated: PG-13)
Title: Part 110: Every Dream Ends
Description: Charmian and Drake say their goodbyes, and head home from Manitou Island...
By: Tehuti, Lord Of The Eight

...much earlier than I usually do. I've already got about 5kb, not bad considering how early I've started. I really hope I finish it in time as it might run a little longer; I'm not sure. I just feel the need to leave myself some room. Haven't worked on it at all today though; been too busy with other things. And yes, this is the final part of the serial. WOOHOO! 110 is a nice even number! It'll probably end at about 380,000 words, and I hope that I've tied up every major loose end but for one (which remains for the sequel; I'm hoping somebody points it out to me when the story is done, to see if they were paying attention :) ). So consider this the first day of the countdown to the end of Manitou Island. End date, next Friday, a week from now...if my luck holds out for one week more.

That was a piddling amount of time to spend on the subject of this entry, but I think I ran out of words. Maybe I will work on a Chronicle now! I really REALLY have to pee. Tar...

(And thank you, S., for the e-mail. I hope this entry was entertaining enough, considering I had no idea what I was talking about. :) )